R
by LoliPear the WaltzQueen
Summary: R  Jack accepts the key to the city and bears the sins of the father into its years of fruition. Rapture lives.
1. Retrieval

The world spun on its axis. The horrible pain brought no sound from Jack as he flew before the ground came up to meet him with a dull smack. The ADAM engorged monster that was Fontaine stumbled out of the clutches of the strange apparatus that had infused him with enough ADAM to destroy his wavering humanity. Fontaine clutched the small holes in his chest where the needle that had pierced his thick, dark hide for the fourth time jutted out from him. His voiced boomed like three people at once were trying to be heard over the Adam in his blood stream.

"I had you built. I sent you top side." The needle was given a powerful throw as it was yanked out of his already healing flesh. "I showed you what you was, what you was capable of" The tip embedded itself into the ground near his neck. "Even that life you thought you had? That was something I dreamed up." Fontaine swayed with the loss of ADAM, dealing with his first low after the high. Jack concentrated on simply staying awake. He had used all of his First Aids earlier on in the fight. "And had tattooed inside your head." As Fontaine's voice roared on Jack struggled not to close his eyes. He couldn't let them down. Tenenbaum, the girls, he had to help them. If he closed his eyes he would let them all die. He could almost here them now. They would cry and say- "Get Him!" No, they wouldn't say that, they, wait.

Jack's slow thoughts raced as he watched the girls crawl out of their holes in the wall, with their shiny, blood stained needles in tow. As Fontaine's meaty paw reached out to snuff him out one of them had jumped onto the abomination of a man and stabbed him in his ear. Fontaine bellowed in pain and twisted violently. His plasmids and gene tonics struggled to heal him but the needle steadily sucked them out. "Come on, Come on!" the girl cried. Fontaine groaned as he began to collapse. The little girl jumped off and instructed her gathering of called friends to suck the life and Adam from him."Stab him!" Another jumped on his back, stabbing him with all her might. She was flung off as Fontaine fell onto his back. The girls surged like things possessed and began to drain all of his blood. The venous, over-sized form of Fontaine lay on the floor like a grotesque statue as his voice grew silent and the children kept stabbing. Jack heard the sounds of flesh ripping and children crying for blood as darkness stole his vision. It was a long time before the darkness lifted.

The moment Jack was gifted once more with awareness he pushed himself off the ground. The air swam around his head as though he was standing outside in the seawater. He saw the little girls standing around Fontaine, one of the littler ones was still gently sucking Adam from him as she repeatedly stabbed his corpse. She noticed his movement and hurried over. Her tattered purple dress made soft noises as she moved towards him. Her large purple eyes were wary. Her arm extended to hand him something brass. He recognized it quickly. It was Ryan's genetic key. It was the key to the city. They were giving him the city. He hesitantly reached for it. The young girl flinched away. Jack retracted his hand and kneeled. Seeing that all was well and that he hadn't been driven mad with Adam she smiled wanly and held the key aloft. Jack took it and set it down on the floor. His arms slid around her tiny, bird-like shoulders and he held her close.

The girl smiled and hugged him back. The others came over and held him as well. There he was, a man awash in a sea of gratitude and tiny joyful bodies. He let his right hand reach down and grasp the key. It lay in his palm dull and bloody much like the city itself. His thumb rubbed small circles in it and with every revolution more and more grime fell away. Jack smiled at it. They had given him a city tired of pain and sick from bloody war. hey had trusted him with everything they had. He rubbed it hard against his sleeve. He held it at eye level now. The girls looked on in wide eyed wonder as it lay sparkling in Jack's palm. They had given him their trust and their hope and their city. now he was going to bring their dreams to life. Rapture would live once more. Even if Jack had to rebulid with his own hands. 


	2. Regius

So. Two people asked me to continue. If they haven't noticed i am not the best at doing things for extended periods of time. Don't get your hopes up too much, guys.  
>No tengo nada.<p>Regius<p>

The crisp sound of pressurized air escaping the bathysphere signaled the arrival of royalty. Jack's head poked out the slightest bit before the rest of him came into view. The sling full of weapons jostled against the beige sweater that still smelt of the sea. His boots made a light noise that echoed off the walls. Jack crept along with his ears straining for every drop of water, every creak of metal and possible enemies' footfall. He had mostly cleaned out a sizable chunk of Arcadia, but there was really no telling who was and was not out there. Jack silently slid out of the bathysphere station. His swivelling eyes beheld a fairly vast expanse of green interspersed by bodies. Everything seemed to be in the clear. Still, Jack wouldn't be hanging around long enough to see that state of affairs change.

It was fairly silly, honestly. Tenenbaum already had a secure home for the girls away from the splicers. What had compelled him to come here? Maybe it was the lack of propaganda spilling over the airwaves. Perhaps it was the relative lack of destruction ,here where everything was organic and green. He set out in a steady jog for Julie Langford's place. Maybe he would find what was calling out for his attention.

The spongy earth gave way to the metal of the tunnel sooner than Jack would have liked but he was not thinking about that. The hole that splicers had cut in the doorway of Julie's Laboratory grew nearer as Jack kicked more corpses aside. Outside the doorway he hesitated. No sounds presented themselves. Nothing moved. The scent of sulfur hung heavily in the air. The shotgun barrel rasped agaisnt the grenade launcher. A low ringing grew louder in his ears.

"Mongrel!" Jack turned to see a frost covered splicer raising an attack. The sound of thunder reigned supreme and she was looted before being laid to the side of the tunnel. Rapture was rotting with enough bodies already, he didn't need anymore getting in his way. Jack tromped on inside. Ryan's offense on the labs lay on the ground smelling strongly of rot and chemicals. Jack groaned with his new Big Daddy voice like a mournful whale. Rapture was already a disaster, the places that were clean couldn't afford to start a downward spiral as well. Jack worked, taking corpses and dumping them outside the door. As he did so he saw more and more detail to the mutations of prolonged splicing. Womens' skin had grown through their pretty dresses. Mens' noses had receded into their faces. One man had what appeard to be three extra hands growing out of his lower leg. Hands covered in slimy blood trembled under the forces of nasuea before he ended his task and followed the tunnel up to Julie's chamber.

Julie Langford lay stiff on the floor. He hadn't had much time to pay her corpse any attention. There were no markings on her, no mutations, no scratches or pus bleeding wounds. She had died of poisoning, not splicing. She had died by the hands of a man, now dead himself. She died healthy. Her weight laying in his arms, told him so. Her golden brown curls bounced in his periphrial vision as he bounded down the steps and out into the rolling hills. Distantly an alarm rang coupled with screams before trailing off. Disregarding the noise he continued his one man funeral procession.

The small freshwater stream sat uninterrupted near the doors. Jack half wished he could peel off his clothes and take a dip in it . He knew enough to know that doing so would be asking to get caught unaware so he hurried on past Julie Langofrd in her new grave towards the bathysphere to Hephestus Core. He had one more stop to make today.

The last time Jack had been here he had to pry the doors open and had been greeted by shaking and rumbling in the darkness. Now the doors open before him and the halls light up where ever he walked. Nothing came near him, there was nothing here. Nothing at all but him and a man. Andrew Ryan had been, in turns, a visionary, a leader, a figurehead, a murderer and a madman. He had also been his genetic father in a world where genes meant so much. A distant part suppossed he should have felt something towards this man, something besides the cold indifference he had. Jack reached down and yanked the twisted metal golfclub out of his head with a sickening squelch. It clanged on the floor as he reached out towards the shell of a man on the ground.

Andrew Ryan's hand rasped on the floor as Jack dragged him to the bed in the next room over. A trail of blood lengthed from Andrew's head back to that damning golfclub. The shiny brass buttons on his coat glinted as he was heaved onto the soft coverlet. Andrew's arms were crossed with an honor he may have deserved in some other time and place and the brown bedding was wrapped around his body. Jack sat on the edge of the bed. His head low, he felt the blood on his hands, on the backs and palms and between the fingers.

Jack gently rose and left the room. He spared a glance back before the door closed. The dark leather boots clunked against the polished wood. He strode over to the golf club on the floor. It couldn't have been more than half a pound, a small scrap of metal. Yet it felt heavy in his hand. He set it in the sleeve of clubs and turned to leave. The air lock turned automatically as he came near. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. For one more night, Andrew Ryan would own the city. It was his pride and joy, let him have it one last day.

Jack turned the heavy wheel on the otherside until the door opened. He exited and headed for the nearest bathysphere to Olympus Heights. He would be safe with Tenenbaum for the time being. He would have a lot of work to do, but for now he needed rest. 


	3. Relict

No tengo nada, mis amigos. If you see something you'd like to point out, I am always open to that sort of thing.  
>Edit:Okay, So I notcied some stupid stuff and it is now corrected. If you see anything wrong feel free to tell me so.<p>Relict - left behind; surviving<p>

The children welcomed him enthusiastically. The sound of small quick footsteps make a sound like rain as they approached. They swarmed around his feet like splicers would around them. A small smile took root on Jack's face. The children all spoke in a flurry of questions, gestures and exclamations completely blocking out the warbling of the woman on the radio. One of them asked to be picked up. She giggled, and waved down at her compatriots. They playfully waved back and asked, "What is weather like?" Her arms spun gently to and fro with each clunking step he took downwards. Jack hunched on his way down the stairs, before straightening up once he hit the bottom. His head came fairly close to the ceiling. Being spliced up from birth on will sure do things to you, he mused. His eyes dusted the ceiling. Especially with growth hormones. He vaguely recalled the stewardess from the the Plane. She had made a startled noise when she saw him get up to go the the bathroom. When questioned she explained that his height surprised her. He had not noticed anything odd about his height and told her so. She had smiled meekly and replied, "six and a half feet tall is no laughing matter."

More girls were now requesting the aerial treatment. He stooped down and grabbed three more around their petite stomachs and swayed the four of them back and forth. All of them giggled and 'weeee'd and generally enjoyed themselves as his bundles of weapons jangled merrily. He eventually set the girls down. Hopping around carefully made chalk drawings and over teddy bears in party hats, he approached the windowed section of the dank retreat. Most of the room was shadowed. The lights had made Tenenbaum little more than a smoking silhouette, the first time he had seen her. Now she was no where to be found. Jack looked around the voluminous area to find that the Little Sisters -he had trouble thinking of them as anything else after so long- had not approached the window with him. He gave them a questioning glance. Jack thought a moment and raised his hand towards the window and tilted his head in case the weren't quite nuanced in facial expressions but knew body language. Being chemically-and otherwise- put into a trance and made to spend lot of time with a voiceless person would make you adept in the art of body language he had imagined.

Luckily for him, Jack wasn't far off.  
>"Mama Tenenbaum said that she would be busy for a while," a tow headed Little Sister had explained imperiously. She seemed to be slightly taller than the others and was probably the one to quiet any fights or still tears when Tenenbaum was away. She had a gentle voice with a vague European accent somewhere underneath that reliance on vowels that Jack had come to detect as being purely Rapturian. Jack took a moment to baulk at himself. Here was only three years old, with no personal knowledge of the world outside of Rapture and yet he could detect her heritage as being Swedish. The things the had seen fit to emblazon on his brain bewildered him. They also alarmed him. now that he had knowledge of his servitude, he also had the knowledge that every little mistake, every single judgment call and association were all someone else's. Jack had taken no breaks on the way to take down Fontaine once that cat was out of the bag - another phrase he had heard nowhere- and hadn't taken the time to dwell on his existence. He was now getting that time.<p>

Jack had experienced more of the world then the small figures he was surrounded by, and yet he had seen less of the world than they had. One of the Audiodiaries had mentioned the ages in which a girl could become a Sister, five to nine, they had said. These girls were anywhere from two to seven years older than him and where he knew pain and Sweden and betrayal, they knew only Adam, trash lined halls, and Daddy. A few of them probably knew Sweden, or whatever country they had come from. In a few years it wouldn't matter, they'd have the same knowledge of the outside world as those born in Rapture.

In his travels Jack had not seen a school or anything related to children and growing. He did not consider the Little Sister's home related to children as much as it was related to splicing. He could probably remove the chemical instruments and turn the horror house into a school. It would take work but it was not unimaginable.

Out side the realm of building plans and restructuring, the mass of Little Sisters looked up at the frozen man expectantly. They were all well versed in staying quiet and patient. Loud, impatient little girls didn't live for long, here at the bottom of the sea. Somewhere nearby some Nitro Splicer found himself in a foul mood and the tremors seemed to unfreeze Jack. He looked up warily for a moment. Jack was as swift a judge as ever and decided that this splicer was too close to the safe-house for comfort. Jack strode towards the stairs and the Sisters followed behind. One of them opened the door and he was no sooner out side than a series of explosions were heard. It took no more than two minutes total for Jack to electrocute the ill tempered madman and take a swinging leap at his skull with a frozen wrench before going back to the door. The wrench made a sheet of ice as he knocked for entrance. One of them -with purple eyes, who gave me the key- opened the door for him and led him back inside. The Sisters were nowhere to be seen when he came back in. He looked around, worried that something had gotten in and kidnapped them. The violet eyed girl strode into the center of the room and called out "LillyPoppy" in what must have amounted to her cloudest voice. Suddenly the Little Sisters seemed to pour out of every crack and crevice in the room. At least four had come out of the flower shaped hole in the wall. Jack surmised that the strange word had meant something akin to "Coast's clear." Jack sat on the bed he had awoken on, not too long ago and watched the girls. Now a happy murmur sounded as the girls began to play with their toys, sometimes coming up to show him their blocks and pulling him over to see their drawings. He greeted each one with a fond smile and a hint of his Big groan. They still seemed to respond well to the sound of a Big Daddy despite the removal of the Chemical conditioning, he noted absently. Health kits and canned meat were not substitutes for real sleep. His eyes started to slowly grow heavy, heavier than the burden of Atlas with the world on his shoulders, Jack imagined. And soon enough, he was asleep. 


	4. Reliquarymaybe better update later

Reliquary- something that holds relics

The burden Jack carried fell graclessly into its predestined pit. This would be one of the last graves dug for a single person in Rapture for a while. History had given mankind many leaders. Men both virtuous and vicious have brought about bounty and blood and were remembered for it as a king. Andrew Ryan was now a Dead King, like many before him. His burial would not be much, but it would be fitting for the kind of king he was. Even Fontaine had called him a king, while posing as Atlas. Fontaine had ruled for a few short hours, but a king he was not. Sweat trickled down his neck as the artificial sun shone down on him. Dirt fell in torrents down onto the shell of a King from the shovel of a King. No breeze relieved him of even the smallest fraction of heat. He knew there would be no breeze to releive him of the burden of breathing life back into the city. The thought held onto his mind. It felt ominous yet promising, as though the stilling of the wind of fortune foretold a storm of happiness yet to come.

Arcadia was a peaceful area, the Rapture Reminders and hourly announcements did not sound here. The air remained uninterrupted, excepting the fighting of mad men in masks. Elsewhere, though, the same old messages found themselves retired and replaced with Tenenbaum's voice. Her voice could spread hope where his never did and no longer could. No details were given, it couldn't be risked but a message was sent out every hour on the hour, where ever a speaker could be found. "Atlas, Fontaine and Andrew are dead. Rapture has been united under a new leader, Jack Ryan, Andrew's son. If you are in hiding, remain so, but have hope. A new day is here. Help is coming."

Her words rang in his head. The echoes bounced off of every wall, becoming fainter yet no less powerful. Jack wondered distantly how many people there were, left in Rapture. The splicers were so plentiful that many innocents may have been caught in the crossfire in any of the many pointless battles. How many? How many families destroyed by splicing even when they hadn't ever touched a drop of Adam?The answer expressed itself more and more with the remnants accumulating on the ground of Apollo Square. Every instance of life swept away was another tick in the check box labeled 'Too Many'. Yet hope remained. Tenenbaum had given him a more complete map of Rapture when she discovered him asleep under a pile of little girls. There were at least four more districts to Rapture. Tenenbaum had informed him with reasonable certainty that there existed a fair number of sane people with in Pauper's Drop and had proved it when she had radioed and received an answer. The woman named Grace had seemed distrustful at first yet the transmission had ended with a message being passed on. Now it was broadcasted throughout Rapture, sending hope in any form it could.

Look guys, this is the most I got done. college is hard but this is better than nothing. 


End file.
